my neighborhood in trumansburg

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Greetings from Trumansburg, NY

Above, a view looking east on Main Street in earlier times.
Most of these buildings remain but the streets are now paved.

. . . . . . .

A 9-minute walk gets me to Sweetland Farm, our CSA.
Sunflowers line the stretch of highway next to the farm,
leading out of town on the north side.

Below, Silver Dan resides in the front window of the Historical Society museum,

on a side street and a 10-minute walk from my house.

McLallen House Bed and Breakfast is one of several in and around the village.
This is a 4-minute walk from Strowbridge Street.
The owner is also the coordinator of the village Farmer's Market.

Taughannock Falls, 3.5 miles due east,

our first stop to take out of town guests on a scenic driving or walking tour.

The lower falls at Taughannock Falls State Park in autumn.
From here the walk to the base of the falls is an easy, flat one,
about half an hour's amble round trip
deep in the bottom of the gorge.

Trumansburg Liquor Store on Main Street.

gimme! coffee
Locally created artisan coffee from beans hand selected in South America and Africa
from small, local growers
and roasted on a farm outside of town.

gimme! A "no-nonsense" coffee and expresso bar.

One Green Horse used book store on Main.

Hazelnut Kitchen on Main. Sumptuous dinners.

Sundrees featuring 'a variety of goods.'

Our go-to shop for gifts is Sundrees, owned and run by a woman with her own 20-year cottage industry creating fantastic handbags and shoulder bags made of sturdy, durable and rugged tapestry fabrics.

It's a quirky, eclectic, vintage-style, kitschy and free-form mix of highly creative and imaginative items. “A quaint shop for a quaint town,” as one visitor is quoted as reporting.

Shops along West Main Street:
Tim's Barber Shop, where an old fashioned hair cut is always available.
Life's So Sweet Chocolates, making their own dark and milk chocolates.
The Pourhouse, pouring libations, serving good pub food with a twist
and offering live, local, acoustic music.
Marshall's Laundromat. In earlier days Silver Dan presided over the street from the second story, middle window, when it was a carriage shop.
The Collection, antiques.
The Rongovian Embassy, world-famous bar with music and serving dinner.
NY Pizzeria, thin, crispy crust with creative toppings.
Sundrees, 'a variety of goods.'

Word of Mouth Catering

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Trumansburg, NY. Population 1,642.

Living in a small village can net huge rewards. Particularly when you’re within a short commuting distance of a small, green city such as Ithaca, New York. Many of my neighbors catch the bus for a 25-minute commute to Cornell, $3/round trip. We’re far from a bedroom community, though. Indeed, we’re a thriving small town with a great big heart and some pretty amazing places to visit and eat to boot. Nearly every venue in our village is an easy 5-minute stroll from my home on Strowbridge Street.

highlights

Some of the highlights include:

A brand new playground created with the help of 500 volunteers.

A thriving Farmer’s Market with new timber frame kiosk shelters facing a central open sided music pavilion. THE happening place on Wednesday evenings.

A grass roots music festival that Rolling Stone magazine once called one of the best kept secret festivals in the country. It now draws over 10,000 people every year in mid-July.

Not just one but four thrift shops for clothing: kids, trendy or otherwise.

A thriving micro coffee brewery café.

MY HOME, currently for sale!

My home is a 3-bedroom, one bathroom small vintage single family home, ca. 1900. It’s a quaint and charming house. Our neighborhood streets are not only tree lined, they feel more like a mature forest with houses sprinkled throughout. My parents moved us here in 1963, where I live now that they’ve both passed away. I love the peaceful quiet in this neighborhood, its feeling of safety and the combination of friendliness and privacy afforded by the neighbors. Runners and dog walkers frequent the neighborhood. It’s a 5-minute walk from my door to Main Street, a distance of 3 blocks.

The house has only been owned by three families since it was built in 1923, the same year my mom was born, in Norway.

thrift shops

eating

The best eatery is Hazelnut Kitchen. The fare is scrumptious and features mostly locally grown regional foods. Exciting, original cuisine, visually stimulating. Reservations strongly recommended.

Two other places to eat that offer regularly scheduled live music, from over-the-roaders to our own locally home-grown variety are The Pourhouse and The Rongovian Embassy, a long-running music venue that got its start in the late 60s.

And just outside town Americana Vineyards and Winery offers creatively constructed sandwiches on a luncheon and dual dinner menu. The sandwiches are fantastic and everything on the menu is either locally grown or homemade in-house, including the ketchup.

For grocery shopping it’s Shur Save, the only show in town. A medium sized store that does a good job carrying some organic and locally grown goods in addition to the usual fare.

Sweetland Farms, our CSA, offers summer and winter memberships. The farm is a highly functioning and thriving 500-member CSA, featuring just about everything under the sun, kissed by the sun and blessed by the rains. Weekly pick-up of healthfully grown produce is in the new barn and is abundant. You-pick options include strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, kale, chard, basil and loads of flowers. A 9-minute walk from my house in the other direction, just outside the village.

In winter the two co-owners of Word Of Mouth Catering offer a reasonably priced up-scale 5-course meal with starters in their massive kitchen. In the annex next door dinner is served family style on white linen table cloths with candlelight. Reservations fill up within 5 minutes of e-vites hitting loyal and faithful devotees. You never know what village luminary you're likely to be seated next to, and kids are almost non-existent.

Wait! There's more!

The best place to buy flowers is Vine Garden Designs, neatly settled into the old Post Office on a side street just a few steps from Main.

The best park within walking distance in the village is the Farmer’s Market. Since the arrival of the new kiosk shelters and central open sided pavilion families can be seen joining friends for evening or weeknight picnic meals in summer. The Market is open for home grown produce and goods on Wednesday evenings but is used as a park the rest of the time.

Another park is the new ‘new’ playground on the central school campus. One feature is the ‘living roof.’

The best spot to take visitors is to the 215’ high Taughannock falls. Options include a wonderfully strenuous uphill/downhill 3-mile walk on the Rim Trail or a less strenuous flat walk along the stream to the base of the falls, a 1.5 mile round trip. Either way it’s a great way to stroll and walk the dogs with visiting out-of-town friends or family and the sound of rushing water is always within earshot.

OTHER FEATURES IN THE VILLAGE INCLUDE:

edible Finger Lakes magazine, an exciting recent publication featuring local restaurants, wineries, farms and their creators. Interesting articles, tantalizing recipes and inspiring photography operated by a husband and wife team. Part of the edible 'community' nationwide.

Word of Mouth catering. Their window displays of vintage dishware and huge working kitchen are to die for; dinners held once a month through the winter fill up within 5 minutes of posting. Pesto making takes a week, fills Main Street with its fragrance and also fills many 5 lb. tubs to be stored in the freezer for use in catering jobs over the winter. One of the two co-owners grows nearly an acre of basil just for this.

High Point Farm, locally raised grass fed beef.

Mushroom grower Blue Oyster Cultivation.

Regional Access, NYS’s leading purveyor of natural and specialty foods.

Numerous tastefully accommodating and well visited B & B’s.

Acorn Designs, gathering images of nature from local artists, creatively presenting them on ecological papers.

Life’s So Sweet Chocolates, handcrafted and creative (try the Aztec Truffle).

And finally, one new addition: Going into the last remaining vacant store front in the village is a new place, called Good To Go, opening in October and run by a mother/daughter team. It's a to-go deli offering quality bulk, packaged, and prepared natural foods at affordable prices, while "contributing to building a stronger, and more sustainable, local community." We're excited, all the house moms want to be Good2Go worker bees when they open.